A Guide to Making a Disability Claim in Canada

/0 Comments/in /by

Many people in Toronto and GTA suffer a lot of personal injuries especially related to motor accidents and split and fall. One of the major applications that people file after any personal injury is disability claims. It is vital to know what steps to take when you suffer such fate and to ensure you get the maximum compensation from your insurance companies.  You need to hire the right personal injury lawyer that will guide you and help you take care of all the legal actions while you focus on a speedy recovery. So if you are suffering from an injury or any internal disease for which you cannot continue your work or is causing a major hindrance and if you are willing to know what steps you should follow next when going through such to claim your disability insurance, read below. You need to go through the following seven steps and take prompt action on it. Hiring an lawyer will definitely help you get the most out of your insurance claims:

Check what are the disability plans applicable in your case

One gets several kinds of disability plan benefits in Canada, each having its conditions and criteria. Only if you qualify for any one of them, you will receive the benefits. It’s even possible for a person to qualify for two or more disability claims. Finding the best claims program will help you get the most money for your disability.

Short-Term disability benefits

A few workplaces offer short term disability benefits, which provides disability income to people who can’t work for the next two or three months. Various disability policies offer various benefits and the time coverage they offer varies as well. You need to check whether your employer offers such short term benefits.

A Guide to Making a Disability Claim in Canada

Long-Term disability insurance benefits

Some employees qualify to apply for long term disability benefits. These benefits provide disabled employees with their monthly income for several years until the person becomes 65. To obtain long term disability plans, you need to have an insurance policy. Your disability needs to be eligible to be qualified for thi program. A lot of medical reports and testing in involved in such cases.

Get the approval of your doctor

Without any medical support, your disability claim won’t be approved. Your absence from work won’t be approved as sick leave. Your employer might take it to be an unauthorized leave and might terminate your employment. You need to serve them proper medical prescriptions, mentioning the injury or medical condition you are suffering from, with your doctor’s approval on it.

Sometimes, there might be more you need to do to convince your doctor for its approval of your disability claim. You must follow the doctor’s instructions and be very clear and open about disability and severity of pain and other side effects. However, if you have tried your best to convince the doctor of your need to apply for a disability claim and he is still not convinced, you might have to change your doctor.

Start the process

Upon receiving your doctor’s approval, you can start the process from being employed to being on sick leave. Some employers are strict and generally don’t take their employees’ requests seriously. So you need to tackle the situation carefully to keep your job, a workplace pension, and other benefits secured. For ensuring this, you must get your doctor’s statement written. It must confirm your injury and the need to take leave.

Your employer might show you some other options you can opt for. Don’t accept them. Stick to getting a disability plan benefit. You may be eligible for retiring early. In such cases, the agreement has the clause saying that employers are not under the obligation to pay you once you opt for it. So be careful.

Collect various forms and fill them

After you gather all application forms of various disability plan benefits, start filling them. Fill them properly and attach supporting documents and information. You must fill them properly and check your doctor’s written statement and the employer’s form, ensuring that they have stated correct facts.

A claim representative officer will be assigned, to verify your disability claim. You should cooperate with him and do the needful. After completing every step, all you need to do is waiting for him to make a decision. Generally, employees receive the decision taken within 30 days of their submission of the form. Consult the Canadian Pace Law firm Hamilton for further details.

Hiring a personal injury representative

It is important to hire a personal injury lawyer to in order to get the highest amount of disability claims. Personal injury lawyers are very well versed in their fields and they know the ins and outs about handling such claims and how their clients can get the maximum benefit. One of the great reasons to hire a personal injury lawyer is that they do not charge any fee until and unless they win your case. This way the client is also assured and can easily pay the lawyers only if he gets the compensation from the claims.

Many individuals try to avoid a legal representative as they think the matter might be over complicated. Often they are not aware nor do they have access for the right measures to be taken and the steps to proceed. Whenever an individual files an application, most insurance companies try to manipulate the case and more than often he client ends up receiving compensation lower than they deserve. This is when a personal injury lawyer steps in helps you get the right compensation you deserve.

Hamilton has many reputed personal injury law firms such as Pace law that can guide you get you the right amount. Disability claims are usually time sensitive matters and paperwork needs to be filed in a swift manner. Some clearances may take a longer time hence make sure to file your application on time in the right manner the first time.

Mike

Find top rated attorneys and law firms profiles with Find Attorneys Directory, the best and free online attorney directory. Guest bloggers can also publish their articles here as other bloggers are doing.

What is the Minimum Amount of Social Security Disability Benefits?

/0 Comments/in /by

One of the most pressing questions our Columbus, Ohio, long-term disability clients ask us concerns how much they can expect to receive in Social Security Disability benefits each month. We understand. Being unable to work due to a chronic or fatal health condition often means not being able to afford housing, food, health care, and the other necessities of life.

We can quote them statutory minimums and maximums. We can also produce an estimate based on all the information they provide, but the exact answer can only come from the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program itself.

As a matter of law, the minimum Social Security disability benefit in Ohio for 2019 will be $926 per month. The maximum monthly payment for an individual who qualifies to receive SSDI benefits will be $2,861. The lowest and highest baseline amounts change each year to reflect the cost of living adjustments made to account for inflation.

Now comes the complicated part. Almost no one can budget for receiving exactly the smallest or largest Social Security disability payment.

What is the Minimum Amount of Social Security Disability Benefits

SSDI benefits are based on the average of the recipient’s 10 highest-earning years during which he or she paid into the Social Security program. A correcting variable is applied if the applicant has fewer than 10 years of Social Security credits.

An SSDI beneficiary whose spouse also qualifies for Social Security disability will receive a different amount from a beneficiary who does not have a disabled spouse. Regardless of household dynamics, if the disabled beneficiary is a child, his or her monthly payment is calculated based on the earnings of the parent or guardian who applied for benefits on the child’s behalf.

Once an individual’s monthly SSDI benefits payment is determined, that amount can be diminished if the beneficiary earns income from work or receives other government-paid disability benefits such as workers’ compensation. Importantly, and to the relief of many, SSDI payments do not get adjusted downward for individuals who qualify for Medicaid, a military service-related disability, or federal Supplementary Security Income. It is also possible to access the long-term disability insurance coverage from a privately purchased policy while receiving a full allotment of SSDI benefits.

Since the calculation of Social Security disability benefits differs for each person, consulting with an experienced and knowledgeable long-term disability attorney to arrive at an estimate makes sense. You can schedule an appointment to do that by calling the Columbus offices of Agee Clymer Mitchell & Portman at (614) 678-3318 or connecting with us online.

Mike

Find top rated attorneys and law firms profiles with Find Attorneys Directory, the best and free online attorney directory. Guest bloggers can also publish their articles here as other bloggers are doing.

Which OPERS Retirement Plan is Best

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS) offers three types of plans. Which is the best for you will depend on your circumstances and how involved you want to be in controlling how money put toward retirement and possible long-term disability is invested. Considerations to take include your age, whether you are married, whether you have children, your expected expenses after you turn 65, and if you have one or more health conditions that could force you to stop working before you reach retirement age.

The same caveats apply to participants in the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) in Columbus, Ohio, and participants in the School Employees Retirement System. Each option must be weighed carefully. Those and other public sector employee retirement programs offer complicated choices to enrollees.

As disability attorneys based in Columbus, OH, the lawyers with the Jones Law Group welcome opportunities to advise government workers, public safety personnel, and university faculty on their retirement and disability plan options. We cannot offer definitive answers here, but we will outline some basic features of the three OPERS choices.

OPERS Traditional Pension Plan

This is the kind of plan many people think of when they hear “government pension.” A participant’s employer makes all the contributions to the retirement and disability program, and benefits are paid out based on the participant’s years of service and the person’s age at the time he or she left public sector employment.

If you sign up for the Traditional Pension Plan, you do not need to pay attention to the stock market, 401(k)s or any of the quarterly and annual paperwork needed to manage investments. You will also have the option, unique among OPERS plans, to set up an annuity.

A possible downside is that the pension is fixed at what OPERS is required to pay based on the years-of-service-and-age formula.

OPERS Member-Directed Plan

Signing up for the OPERS Member-Directed Plan lets you set up your own retirement fund and control how a portion of your employer’s retirement plan contribution match is invested. You will need to designate a percentage of each paycheck to retirement.

While the Member-Directed Plan gives you the most say in where your money goes and potentially offers the largest returns on investments, it also limits your options for accessing your retirement funds. Unlike the traditional and combined plans, the Member-Directed Plan does not provide long-term disability benefits. It also does not pay a death benefit to the survivor of a plan participant.

OPERS Combined Plan

Columbus, Ohio, OPERS participants who opt for the Combined Plan get to control the investment of the portion of their paycheck they designate for retirement while also having their employers contribute to a traditional pension fund. At retirement, a Combined Plan participant receives fixed payments based on years of service and age at the time of separation. The participants also get to draw from their own retirement account that they managed like a 401(k).

The big caution here is that Combined Plan participants can lose principal when they invest their own funds. On the other hand, OPERS guarantees payment from the traditional pension portion of the plan.

Mike

Find top rated attorneys and law firms profiles with Find Attorneys Directory, the best and free online attorney directory. Guest bloggers can also publish their articles here as other bloggers are doing.

Who Can Receive My Social Security Disability Benefits Apart From Me?

/0 Comments/in , /by

The question of who can receive your Social Security disability benefits has two answers. The first relates to using your Social Security eligibility to assist a family member who lacks eligibility. The second involves having a trusted individual or organization take delivery of and manage benefit payments on your behalf. In either scenario, seeking advice and assistance from a disability lawyer in Columbus, Ohio, can make setting up the arrangement easier. Read more

Mike

Find top rated attorneys and law firms profiles with Find Attorneys Directory, the best and free online attorney directory. Guest bloggers can also publish their articles here as other bloggers are doing.